An Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system is capable of covering a large geographic area and support meter traffic communications under various different circumstances or requirements. For example, the AMI system may employ different networking techniques/protocols based on different situations. The appropriate networking technique/protocol to be employed may be influenced by various factors such as the location where the meter(s) is installed, the challenges imposed by the surrounding environment for radio propagation, and the distance/area to be covered. Depending on the circumstances, the various networking techniques/protocols may include a TV White Spaces (TVWS), a suitable technology for long range wireless installation, Broadband over Power-Line Communication (BPLC) for in-building networking, and ZigBee for short range connection. These various networks are normally partitioned at different levels and cascaded to build the whole AMI system. In this regard, an AMI system may grow over time to involve a very large number of meters (e.g., many thousands or millions of meters) and many levels of networks.
There exist a variety of inter-network routing protocols, such as the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol and the Dynamic Source Routing (DSR) protocol.
However, such conventional routing protocols require strong/powerful routers (e.g., with high processing power and/or a large memory), which are not ideal in the AMI environment.
As an example, in the DSR protocol, route is formed on demand when traffic is to be sent to a destination. During this route discovery, the concentrator floods a route request in the network and thereafter, the destination node responds by sending a route reply packet back to the source that carries information on the route traversed by the route request. In this regard, the route request sent by the concentrator is directed to a specific receiver/meter and thus individual route request would need to be broadcast by the concentrator for each receiver/meter which the concentrator wishes to send data to. This results in unnecessary high bandwith usage as well as requiring powerful gateways/meters for storing the complete routing details, which can be of a significant size for an AMI system handling a large number of meters.
A need therefore exists to provide a simple but yet efficient routing protocol/mechanism for an AMI system that seeks to overcome, or at least ameliorate, one or more of the deficiencies in conventional routing protocols. It is against this background that the present invention has been developed